MONEY was the real reason a woman beat her grandmother to death with a spade, a court heard.

Joanne Hussey is accused of murdering senile Annie Garbutt, of The Clough, Mirfield, on May 7 last year.

Hussey, 33, of Yeadon, Leeds, denies murder but admits to the manslaughter of Mrs Garbutt, 76, on the grounds of diminished responsibility claiming that voices in her head told her to do it.

In the final examination of murder accused Hussey, prosecutor James Goss QC, asked her if she knew that her grandmother had no will.

“Yes, I knew everything would go to my mother,” she admitted.

After a longing glance at her mother, sitting in the public gallery, Hussey added, “I think it’s wrong that the state can take all your assets to pay for care.

“Someone without money gets the same amount of care.”

Mr Goss said: “You think the money that someone has should be available to their descendants.

“Earlier in January, Mrs Garbutt had gone into a home.

“You didn’t want her to go because that would cost a lot of money.

“In May you stopped her by killing her, because she was getting worse and worse and you knew the time had come.”

Mr Goss then asked Hussey how her grandmother’s panic alarm cord had got into her car.

Hussey said she had gone to collect some washing from her gran a few days before the alleged murder and it must have broken and fallen in with the load.

Mr Goss countered: “Was the truth of it that you had taken that alarm when you went back on the Sunday?

“You came up with the washing reason because you knew the police had found it.”

Mr Goss also asked Hussey if the voices in her head had ever said anything else to her other than to ‘get rid of grandma’?

“It’s just people having conversations, it’s not really clear,” she said.

“What sort of things were they talking about?” Mr Goss inquired.

“Sometimes they are calling me names, that I was fat and stuff,” Hussey said.

Mr Goss pressed Hussey on whether she had ever told anyone about the voices.

Hussey replied that she had only told family friend Pat Easton and had never revealed it to any of her doctors.

“I find it extremely difficult to talk about, it’s embarrassing because it makes you look mad and not normal,” she said.

Hussey told the court she had heard two male voices but Mr Goss revealed she had told the forensic psychiatrist at New Hall prison about just one voice.

“There’s a difference because you’re making this up,” Mr Goss asserted.

Mr Goss completed his examination accusing Hussey of mounting a clean-up operation after she had killed her grandmother.

“You tried to clean the spade – how did blood get into your bath that matched grandma’s DNA?

“Why did you change your top?

“Why was the spade dug into soil? Do you remember trying to clean it?

“You were very keen that it was yourself that discovered your grandma was dead and for you to take hold of her so that you could explain how some of her blood had got on to you ... but when you realised the police were on to you, you thought it had better be the line to do with voices.”